Bitcoin max pain and options positioning, live
Max pain is the most quoted, least verified number in crypto. We compute it first-hand from the Deribit option chain for Bitcoin and Ethereum, draw where the option mass actually sits, and then we do the part nobody does: we freeze the read before every expiry and grade it against the real settlement price, in public.
Connecting…
The full expiry ladder is part of PRO Paradiser. Become a PRO Paradiser
Expiry Gravity Score not scored yet
Receipts accruing
Before we put a pin probability on any expiry, we require our own graded record. Our strike-level archive is young, so the score stays parked while the receipts build below.
0 graded expiries so far
The gravity well
The reading is still building.
Drag across the field to test a settle price, then release and watch the ball fall to max pain.
Drag anywhere on the well to slide the settle price. Release and it eases back to max pain, the settlement that pays option holders the least. The payout curve is public max-pain arithmetic over the strike open interest shown; the gravity zone construction stays ours.
Strike open interest read first-hand from the Deribit option chain. The gravity zone is the options-implied one sigma region around the max-pain strike, scaled to the time left to expiry. Values are estimates.
The receipts every expiry, graded
Each nearby expiry is frozen at least one hour before settlement: max pain, the gravity zone and the spot distance at that moment. After settlement we grade the frozen read against the real Deribit delivery price. Nothing here is backfilled, ever.
| Expiry | Max pain, frozen | Gravity zone | Settled at | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loading the record… | ||||
PRO Paradiser members see every listed expiry and the full logged history. See ParadiseFamilyVIP →
The option crowd positioning read, not a probability
Standing money open interest put/call
…
Positions that are held: hedges and structural bets. Slow to move.
Fast money volume put/call, 24h
…
What is being traded today: reaction, panic and chase.
Skew downside vs upside IV
…
Positive means protection below spot costs more than upside above it.
Reading the crowd…
Gamma gravity dealer hedging
Reading the surface…
Option sellers hedge mechanically, and their hedging force concentrates where option exposure is heaviest and closest. We read that center of force from the live chain. What it reads is public; how we weight it is ours.
What we will and will not put a number on
Max pain is easy to compute and easy to abuse. Quoted four weeks before an expiry it is close to astrology; near settlement, with concentrated open interest and spot already nearby, dealer hedging can genuinely compress price toward the heavy strikes. A pin probability is only honest if it is conditioned on those distances and tested on real settlements.
Deribit publishes settlement prices going back years, but nobody, including Deribit, publishes historical strike-level open interest. Our own strike archive started on 2026-07-06, so an honest backtest does not exist yet, and we refuse to fake one. Instead we freeze every nearby expiry read before the event and grade it in the table above. When enough graded expiries exist, the pre-registered test runs; a score appears only if it passes. Quarterly expiries never get a score at all: their physics differ and there are only four a year.
Max pain and options positioning, defined
Max pain
Max pain is the settlement price at which option holders, in total, would collect the least at expiry. It is computed from strike-level open interest. Price often sits near max pain simply because the option mass builds around spot, which is why an unconditioned "max pain worked" claim proves nothing.
Gravity zone
The gravity zone is the region around the heaviest option positioning where settlement would count as a pin. We draw it as the options-implied one sigma band around the max-pain strike, scaled to the time left to expiry, so nearby expiries get tight zones and distant ones get honestly wide zones.
Put/call ratio
The put/call ratio compares put activity to call activity. The open-interest version reads standing positioning; the volume version reads today's flow. They answer different questions, and extremes carry most of the information. Mid-range values are mostly noise.
Options skew
Skew is the gap between the implied volatility of downside puts and upside calls. Positive skew means the market pays more for protection below spot than for upside above it. A sharp skew move alongside heavy put volume is the classic fear signature.
Gamma exposure
Gamma exposure measures how hard option dealers must hedge as price moves. Near heavily populated strikes into expiry, that hedging can act like gravity, damping moves toward the strike. Once price breaks away, or the positioning flips, the same hedging can accelerate the move instead.
The zone is where options pull. The band is what they price. The map is where leverage breaks.
Expiry gravity, the expected move and the liquidation map are three reads of the same market from different forced players. These reads are context, not forecasts.
For the ParadiseTeam, expiry positioning is one of the layers behind every decision we make, and every trade we share inside ParadiseFamilyVIP. Seats stay deliberately limited.
Check seat availability →How to read this page
Four ideas behind the picture above.
Max pain is arithmetic, not magic
It is simply the settlement level that would pay option holders the least. The interesting question is not where max pain sits, but whether settlement actually lands near it, under which conditions. That is what the receipts table measures.
Pinning is hedging physics
Dealers who sold the options near a heavy strike hedge by trading against price around it, which can compress price toward the strike in the final stretch. Far from expiry, or with the mass spread thin, that force is negligible.
Standing money versus fast money
Open-interest put/call tells you what is held; volume put/call tells you what is being chased today. When the two diverge hard, someone is repositioning in a hurry, and that divergence is worth watching.
No baseline, no extreme
An extreme only means something against a history. Our put/call baseline is built from our own daily snapshots, so early on this page will honestly say the read is still maturing rather than invent a signal.